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Showing results for tags 'Atari VCS'.
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Was thinking it might be interesting if they released another model of the VCS, but used the 5200 / 7800 design scheme this time around, visually i think it might be more appealing than the current VCS (tho personally i really do like the call back with original VCS). That said, I do think adding a joystick more in line with the Gamestation Pro would make more sense practically, since the limited layout on the controller just does not make much sense at this point even if the system came with a traditional gamepad. I'm still surprised how modern the 5200 and 7800 look still to this day, minus the 5200 needing lose some weight, i still have never owned the VCS since i can't seem to get my hands on it, though most reviewers had said they were confused of what the console was exactly, or that it was trying to do too much of this and that. I guess also the fact you could just load up Windows; and, at that point anyone could just get a pc (or stick with the one they have), not sure if removing that feature would help, maybe. If they can keep support for the VCS platform that would all be well and good, i feel having a hardware revision might help though garner some renewed interest, perhaps make it more clear what the system is, if that was really the issue, and that it's not just a PC with and Atari logo on it, at least that's what i keep reading! Curious on thoughts.
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https://www.walmart.com/ip/Atari-VCS-800-Carbon-Gold-All-In-Bundle-with-Classic-Joystick-and-Modern-Controller-Walmart-Exclusive/344097754 Found this link on Walmart that claims they once carried the carbon gold varient of the VCS. However, it is out of stock. It has reviews talking about the VCS meaning that people did buy this product. None of the reviews mention receiving a different model, like the wood walnut or black onyx. Does this mean the carbon gold variant could've exsisted? What do you think?
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After spending sometime with the gang over at the Atari VCS discord server, I thought I will let the fine people at Atari Age know about it too. I was inspired, and created a way to run Retropie on the Atari VCS. So I created a USB Key both 32GB and 64GB that runs independent, no installing or configuring the system. Once you tell the VCS to boot of the USB key it runs Linux Mint and retropie. Also, because the VCS is a computer, my keys work with almost every computer. If you want more information, I will post some links. First blog post about it. https://dadisajoke.com/blog/f/play-retro-games-on-any-pc My second blog post including a video on how it works. https://dadisajoke.com/blog/f/dadisajoke-retro-power-usb-ready-to-buy Here is the 32GB version on our store. https://dadisajoke.com/store/ols/products/dadisajoke-retro-power-lite-usb-32gb-thumb-drive Now here is the 64GB version. https://dadisajoke.com/store/ols/products/dadisajoke-retro-power-pro-usb-64gb-thumb-drive Please let me know if you have any questions. -
An excellent and fun conversion of this game!
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I saw on a Twitter post by someone else that mentioned Atari's Rollercoaster Tycoon license expires in 2022. My guess is that when they have something to share regarding that license it may be tied into Atari's 50th anniversary celebration. I didn't notice a RCT on VCS thread on here so I thought I'd create one! Licence info: https://www.atari.com/chris-sawyer-and-atari-announce-three-year-license-extension-for-rollercoaster-tycoon/ Press release mentioning RCT coming to VCS in the future: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/08/16/2281430/0/en/ATARI-ANNUAL-RESULTS-2020-2021.html
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⭐️Atari VCS is looking for you? ***Atari VCS technical support agent for game developers*** https://docs.google.com/document/d/13poSqwPkLtSnigoPrNLB2ZW9ecxs0C097Ftw21prsxI/edit?usp=sharing
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The World's Smallest Functioning Atari 2600 Console! A review of the world's smallest functioning Atari 2600. What are your guys opinions on this little thing?
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Today I met... Yorgle Grundle Rhindle ... and they kicked my BUTT! but I did win once!
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Big fish eat little fish!
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I pre-ordered one of these...then just went out and bought one on ebay. Brand new, never opened. Looking for retail ($400) plus shipping, that's it! Open to trading for: -MVS Games I don't have (Last Resort, Etc.) -S-Video Modded Atari 7800 alone with cash or with homebrews, games, etc -NTSC Turbo Duo (I'd add cash) -Rare Laserdiscs, not anime but The Matrix, Sleepy Hollow, Blair Witch Project, Bring out the Dead, Etc. -Nice CIB Sega Master System I realize these are rare items so cash probably easiest for most people. I'm pretty deep into my collection and don't need common anything. Thanks for looking, i hope this goes to someone excited about the system as I still am! They are easy and fun to upgrade.
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I've been refurbishing old consoles and building a new retro gaming center for myself, this year. I figured I would dump the photos here from the past few months so I don't lose them. It all started when I found this really nice old Sylvania flatsceen TV that is still old enough to not be widesreen ($7 Goodwill). After that, it was a matter of cleaning dust and grime off the old consoles, which had been sitting dormant on bookcase shelves, and diagnosing which controllers worked, and which were defective. At this point, my Atari controllers were stuttering or intermittently unresponsive. The Atari was still dusty, and lots of cartridges really needed to be jiggered around to get them to work. Without any cleaning for this, the problem resolved on its own after some use swapping cartridges on the console over a few weeks. The Intellivision II functioned, but still needs serious jiggering to get cartridges to load, but none of them were found to be dead. The playstation 2 works beautifully, but none of my memory cards were recognized. Some of the controllers turned out to be broken, especially the "clear red plastic" one seen plugged in here. I found a nice woodgrain cabinet for a stand at goodwill for 5 bucks, and used an old xetec Amiga hard drive casing for the stand to raise the TV up a bit. Next, I took apart the 2 sets of Atari paddles, which suffered from "Jitter," and cleaned them. Reassembled after cleaning the residue and grease with alcohol and swabs, they worked perfectly. The next challenge was to open up both joysticks, remove the clear adhesive over the boards, clean them, and reassemble with packing tape over the boards. Both of them worked very well, aside from an issue with one of them: The cable plastic seemed pretty stiff, and would lose control if it was not held in a certain position - ultimately a small tug downwards of the connector end plugged into the back of the console got whatever connections were loose to connect. But, this one went into my "museum" for non-use, ultimately. Next, I took apart the console and cleaned the case. I found three areas on the RF cable where the plasic cord exterior had torn, but it seems that the cable is still working perfectly, so a little electrical tape was wrapped around the frayed parts to protect them. Ultimately, I want to replace the cord and fix the connectors in the B&W switch, and get a second Atari joystick, but this is good enough for now. After the next photo was taken, I popped the caps off the paddles and cleaned them some more. Next, I identified two playstation controllers that still functioned, though only one PS2 dualshock controlled worked, so a PS1 controller was borrowed from the old console which is in my "museum." I added a VCR to the mix, running the PS2 through that. Finally, I set up a spare tablet to be able to quicky hit a website with atari manuals on it, for reference if needed, and bought myself a Harmony Cartridge for the Atari for loading games from my organized rom library on SD card, which I continue to explore and learn about. My Atari Keyboard Controllers needed no maintenance - so they will be nice to have for Star Raiders. Finally, the Commodore 128 (64) computer and accompanying Commodore 1571 (Disk Drive) were set up as part of my functioning retro gaming center. It's still going to need some refurbishing to get it all cleaned up and "retro-brighted", with the 128 boot not functioning, lots of keys lacking spring or being loose, and the old RF video cable lacking proper RF shielding to prevent interference. But, it functions and I have access to all my old files and games. This was my primary computer literally from like 1985-1998. I'm making good on my "perpertual student" label for myself. Pacing myself, but aside from some repairs on this and the Atari, I still have two Commdore 64's and an Amiga 500 that will need to come back to life. The Amiga will need cleaning and retrobrighting, keyboard fixes, proper video cable, and a boot disk. The 64's with need to have their problem diagnosed. I have a Timex Sinclair 2068 with no cables, and an Atari 5200 that has a rusted end to it's RF (Power?? WTF) cable, which sparks when turned on. My playstation 1 is probably fine, but with the PS2, there's no rush on that. I'm definitely going to need a proper belkin surge protector instead of these two cheapo power strips. Projects for much later.
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Video Checkers (Atari VCS, Dec 1980, Atari) In 1980, Checkers feels like the new Blackjack. Blackjack seems like it was a requirement to be on every system. Checkers... well, maybe not on every system. It was already on the Fairchild Channel F (which, I missed back when I played through 1978 like... more then a decade ago, but less than 40 years ago. I'll get to it soon.) and we've seen it on the Intellivision and Atari. Now we get to play it on the Atari again. This time, I did think about going to use the world-famous A.I. Checker Program, Chinook, but alas, I wasn't patient enough to sit through the Atari's "thinking" phases at its top level, so I'm just going to go over the features that this Checkers has. Nine levels of difficulty: Games 1-9 represent Checkers against the Computer in 9 levels of increasing difficulty. Game 10 is human vs. human in case all of the checker boards in your house had been stolen or something or you wanted the novel feeling of playing the game on the TV. I'm not judging you for this. The computer takes longer to decide its move the higher the skill level. Ranging from less than two seconds on Level 1, to 30 seconds on Level 6, to 15 minutes per turn on Level 9. "Giveaway" Checkers: Games 11-19 are called "losing" or "giveaway" Checkers. Giveaway Checkers is a variant of the game where you try to lose your pieces first by forcing your computer opponent to jump your pieces. I honestly had never of this version of Checkers before. Skill level of the computer increases as you move from game 11 to game 19, of course. Game Select (to change skill level) functional during a game: Something interesting about the Game Select switch. You can start playing a game on a skill level and decide, in the middle of the game, (but not while the computer is thinking) to increase the skill level. I thought that was kind of neat. Checker notation is used: Atari's Video Checkers uses checker notation and it's noted at the top of the screen. The manual specifically mentions playing other computer opponents and using the Checkers notation to convey the moves to avoid any confusion. (I tried playing two computers against each other when the board is inverted on one. It is hard (for me) to turn my brain around like that. The number system makes it easier to translate the moves to the other computer.) Checker Notation bonus: The B/W switch lets you change up the numbering system in case the computer playing against the Atari is less flexible. This was thoughtful to include and makes the Atari seem to be the more gracious opponent. ("Oh, of course, binary opponent. This unit is happy to adjust its numbering settings for you! It's no trouble at all!") Set up your own board: Moving the left difficulty switch to "a" allows you to set up the board however you like and then play it by putting the switch back to "b". Actual instructions on playing Checkers!: Yeah, I mention this because Activision's manuals are pretty light in general (which was mostly fine). Their manual for their Bridge game didn't fuss with giving the rules at all and their manual for Checkers was also quite brief. Atari's Video Checkers' manual seems absolutely luxurious in comparison. My impression is that the feature set of Video Checkers is pretty rich. I'm not knocking the others (and I'm not going back to actually compare them, lawds no.) but if I had to pick the one I've liked the most so far, I'd have to pick Atari's Video Checkers. I still need to look at Checkers on the Fairchild Channel F though. One game left for the Atari in 1980, Activision's Skiing.
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Old people: "Play new games but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold" It's me. I'm Old people. There's a game we play our entire lives called "Explore vs. Exploit". When seeking to entertain ourselves we are faced with the decision to Explore something new that we might enjoy, or to Exploit something we already know we enjoy. This idea is talked about more broadly in a book called "Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions" by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths. If you haven't already read it, I do strongly recommend it. I know this sounds crazy, (we prefer the term "mental disorder", btw, thanks.), but I always struggle with deciding on what to play and I've literally wasted entire weekends on this indecision. Having every game available to me from 1972 to around 1995 has not helped me at all when trying to figure out what exactly to play when I'm trying to catch up on what I missed when I wasn't paying attention. Dragster (Atari VCS, Jul 1980, Activision) I never really understood this game back in the 80s. I don't think I ever owned a copy and the concept behind it (efficient gear-shifting for maximum speed over a limited distance) was outside of my experience. I do blame this for never having learned to drive a stick-shift until I was in my early 20s. You can play Dragster over and over and over and afterwards find you've only been playing it for about 10 minutes. If you don't have any idea of how you shift gears in a car with a stick-shift then it can be quite frustrating, at first. My first few times I simply blew the engine out and my vehicle didn't even move until I re-read the manual and realized I was trying to shift incorrectly. It's a fun game for what it is. Learning how to quickly engage a learned sequence of actions while perfecting the timing can tickle a challenge urge in us that we sometimes find it interesting to indulge. (I never beat 6.33 seconds. I will never be worthy enough for a patch. So be it.) The second game on the cart adds the challenge of steering. I found that additional challenge interesting but it didn't quite engage me after all the time I'd spent grinding my gears on the first game. If you decide to try it, I do recommend reading the manual as well as being aware that you can reset the game after an attempt by pushing the joystick to the right. It's better than leaning forward to hit the reset button a couple dozen times. That takes us out of July 1980 for the Atari VCS. We've covered a bunch of the other 1980 games already (some were 1981 games that we covered pre-maturely, oh well) but all we have left in this year (for the Atari) is December's Video Checkers (Atari) and Skiing (Activision). I still haven't even gotten to the Fairchild Channel F or the Odyssey^2 games, yet. This seems like a long year, because it's taken me 13 years to get through it, but it's not even half as long as 1982 is. Hopefully I'll get back into the rhythm.
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Checkers (Atari VCS, Jul 1980, Activision) “Chess is like looking out over a vast open ocean; checkers is like looking into a bottomless well.” -Marion Tinsley Marion Tinsley was the World Champion of Checkers from 1950 to 1990. Other people only gained the title if Tinsley didn't show up to play. He won the World Championship whenever he chose to play for it. Jonathan Schaeffer was a computer scientist. He lead the team that developed Chinook. Chinook is the computer program that plays checkers. Their story is a great story which I would love to tell you. Instead, I'm going to tell you the short and crappy version of that story. Chinook almost beat Tinsley in 1992. In 1994 they played against each other again. They played six games to a draw. Tinsley had to stop playing because he was in a lot of pain. The pain was cancer. He died a few months later. Chinook never defeated Tinsley. Tinsley's death inspired Schaeffer. Schaeffer's computer program "solved" Checkers in 2007. What that means is that the computer knows all the ways to play the game so that it either wins or draws. A much better version of that story can be found here: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/07/marion-tinsley-checkers/534111/ I don't really have anything to say about Activision Checkers. It's a good version of Checkers. It's easy to play. The graphics look fine. There are a total of four games on the cart. Three games against the computer. (Novice, Intermediate, Expert) The Novice game takes about 15 minutes. The Expert game can take about 2 hours because the computer takes longer to think. The Intermediate game takes more time to play than the Novice game and less time to play than the Expert game. I bet you already knew that part about the Intermediate game. The fourth game is a two-player game. For the two-player game I needed to find another person. Every person I tried to drag into my house ran away from me. I decided I would cheat by having another computer program choose my moves for me. I chose the website MathIsFun, which has a Checkers game. I put Activision Checkers on Novice. I put MathIsFun Checkers on Hard. Activision Checkers won. Apparently that website is for kids, so don't be impressed. You might have thought I was going to have Chinook play against Activision Checkers. That would have been smart, but I didn't think of it until just now. Chinook is here: https://webdocs.cs.ualberta.ca/~chinook/play/ Let me know if you win.
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Welcome back to what I'm now calling Chronogamer LE. The LE stands for Low Effort. If I have to really work up any enthusiasm to play something then that's too much effort, so I will learn what I can about it, read the manual, maybe do some research and play it for as long as I can stand it. If I try to get more involved in it, I'll end up going down a sort of procrastination rabbit-hole where I put it off for, like, half a decade or more and it blocks me from moving forward. I've recently learned I can blame ADHD for this, so, yay for me. Oh, by the way, I found Random Terrain's page that presents some optimal guessing regarding the release dates of games released to be played on the Atari VCS. Nice Job, RT! Your have made it a lot easier for me to get back into this. Bridge (Atari VCS, 1980, Activision) The manual for Activision's Bridge will not teach you to play Bridge. You have to have that knowledge ahead of time. You can get that knowledge from YouTube. You'll learn that it normally takes four people to play this game. You can learn everything you need to get started in about 10 minutes or even less. If you have three other people that you want to hang out with and try a new card game, then this could possibly be an interesting game. Maybe. I'd have to really like at least one of the other people involved to even think about playing any card game these days. Okay, I take that back. I did enjoy playing some Texas Hold-em prior to the Pandemic, but there was money involved and also an attractive woman, so, I guess we understand what motivates me. (It wasn't the money.) Activision's Bridge is for a single player. Like the manual, I don't want to teach you anything about playing Bridge. Sorry. Kinda. Don't look at me like that, just go to YouTube. Regarding this video game: I can see that there is planning and some tactical thinking involved. I can see the appeal of playing this as a social card game with other people. I can see the appeal of having a video game version of Bridge to help a player practice to improve how they play the game. I can even appreciate Activision's Bridge as a way of exploring how to think about playing the card game Bridge. These are worthy and noble pursuits and I admire the courage it must've took for Activision to produce this as one of the four games they debuted in 1980. (Edit: This game DID come out in 1980, but it was not one of the four debut games. They were: Boxing, Checkers, Dragster and Fishing Derby. I'll get better at playing these things in order now that I have a better order for them, but I've dreaded playing Bridge for so long that I needed to get it out of the way so that I could just get back to doing this.) That doesn't mean I have any interest in ever playing it again. Also, I'm a little resentful that I've learned to play a card game that I'll probably never ever play. This is where I'd give the game an emoji rating but it's been so long since I've posted I don't even remember how to do them. In this case it would be one of those "meh" emojis. Oh... okay, that was easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for reading! I might go on YouTube with these articles and show actual game play. I know that I've almost done this in the past and then deleted my YouTube. Sorry about that.
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Hi guys, like promised, here is my first successful PoC, connecting a NVIDIA GTX 1060 6GB to the ATARI VCS ?. The monitor is directly connectet to the HDMI GTX Port and it works fine and for the very first test, better than accepted ?.) I´ve tested it with a PALIT KalmX GTX 1050 TI 4GB and a Gigabyte Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, which I just had at hand, but it should works of course with other/newer PCIe cards too. Each graphic cards are properly recognized at boot time and works well, as far as I can see.... (See some Screenshot attached) Cheers, andY
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I hope this is the best forum for this topic. I currently own an older JVC 720p set and when I connect the Atari VCS...in either Atari OS mode or PC mode, the overscan is pretty bad. The Windows 10 start button is hidden behind the bezel as well as the top and bottom of the screen. This is correctable in the AMD software in Windows 10, but it is not correctable in Atari OS. The JVC does not have picture size adjustments aside from ZOOM, WIDE, etc which doesn't help. I'm curious if anyone has this TCL and can shed some insight on it's overscan.
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I'm selling three Atari 2600 VCS's: 4 switch Sears Tele-Games model: includes 2 joysticks, pair of paddles, and 5 games of your choice (see listing below) (Sold) 4 switch woody model: includes 2 joysticks, pair of paddles, and 5 games of your choice (see listing below) (Sold) 6 switch woody model: includes 2 joysticks, 5 games of your choice (see listing below), and at no extra cost a TV plug&play console. All have been recently refurbished, are clean and 100% working, deoxidized the contacts in the joysticks and the pots in the paddles as well as the switches on the consoles. You can see more / buy them on my store at Jaded Chicken: https://www.divarin.net/dcag/items.php?categoryId=13 For shipping outside of the US contact me here as i haven't gotten around to coding international shipping calculation on my store site yet. Asking $75 per set.
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Hi Everyone, Yet another question, because as previously stated I am 100% new to working on electronics. So I have another Atari VCS that is displaying very strange behavior: It only plays some cartridges, but not others. The ones it does play it plays repeatedly - that is, with repeated re-seating of the cartridge. This is only about 1/3rd of all carts that are seated in the loading slot - the rest simply show blank screen or occasionally wide vertical lines. Does anyone have experience with a picky cart-playing Atari VCS 2600? Thanks! Evan
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We cordially invite you to the 12th edition of the largest event for fans of ATARI consoles and computers in the world! This time we are celebrating our 20th anniversary... "Silly Venture"! Join us! Last year we broke the record in terms of the number of participants and works submitted for competitions! Just face the facts: All of that at an ATARI-only party! Without your participation this would not be possible - many thanks! The legend continues. Just has to. Long live the Atari demoscene! My Dears, due to the 20th anniversary of Silly Venture, we wanted to give you more than one T-shirt colour to choose from - especially since the logo designed by mOOnie looks simply amazing on all of them! (not forgetting the neat ATARI logo on the sleeve) We will probably choose the 3 or 4 that get the most votes, however we ask that people who decide to buy them take part in the survey. T-shirts will go to print next week - you will be able to order them pretty soon! (also with home delivery). Oh, and the most important thing - t-shirts will be even better quality than in previous years. The survey can be found at the official SV2020 profile on FACEBOOK: CLICK ME NOW! PLEASE DO NOT FORGET TO VISIT OUR SV2020 WEB-SITE FOR MORE INFO! WWW.SILLYVENTURE.EU
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A MORE than decent port of one of my all-time favorite arcade games!
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hi guys I make Atari 2600 vcs reproduction console boxes plus repro game boxes. All retyped with all original fonts, retouched and professionally assembled from scratch with no scans or jpegs used. They're all on my etsy shop. Take a look and spread the word if you can. Thanks! https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/boxingatari
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Here we've got an Atari 2600/VCS "Light Sixer" Bundle with 20 games. Everything has been cleaned and tested and works great. Please see the attached pictures for exact condition of all items. In addition to the console itself, you get 20 handpicked games (seven with manuals), an OEM Atari power supply, an OEM Atari CX-40 joystick and an RF adapter so that you can hook up the Atari to a more modern TV without the need for a switchbox (your mileage may vary on the newest TVs); basically everything you need to get gaming immediately. A couple of the Atari Corp. games fit a little snugly in the cart slot but still work just fine. A couple of the games' end labels are coming up a bit on the left corner. Here are the games: Asteroids (with manual) Battlezone Berzerk Combat Crystal Castles (Atari Corp., with manual) Defender Donkey Kong Joust (with Atari Corp. manual) Jungle Hunt (Atari Corp., with manual) Kangaroo (Atari Corp., with manual) Missile Command Pac-Man Pitfall! (with manual) Pole Position (Atari Corp.) Raiders of the Lost Ark (Atari Corp., end label misprint) River Raid (with manual) Space Invaders Tennis Vanguard Yars' Revenge Looking for $100 plus shipping OBO. Please shoot me a PM with any questions or to get a shipping quote. Thanks!
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